Mass effect review

Overall-7/10

Gameplay-8/10
Good
-Engaging storyline
-Real consequences from your actions
-diverse choice of interaction with npcs
-zomg, you have your own ship to mess with
-paragon and renegade path encourage replaying
Fugly
-secuROM is back!
-rather boring and over simple combat mechanics
-side quest sux after awhile
-main story arc could have been longer
-long loading time and unskippable animations
-avoid taking the lift if possible, its a waste of time!!
-AI rarely react to long range fires

Visuals-6/10
Good
-variation of level designs
-i heard the object popping issue on console version is fixed
Fugly
-wrong shader programming,some lights shine through objects
-limited physics interaction
-performance isnt great for such mediocre visual output

One of my most anticipated game as it is developed by bioware, one of the best rpg devs in recent years.Although sadden by its initial release for xbox360 only, but after a year, its finally being ported to PC.Although port isnt something to crave for, but somehow i did.
After the painless installation , you have to painfully allow the legal malware, SecuROM connects to the internet and decides you have legal copy,while it sends information about your game cdkey and your porn website account to its main sever.GREAT.Upon starting the game, you would realize 30second pause before it starts loading,of course its due to the one and only customer unfriendly secuROM.When you start playing,you realize a massive cpu usage across all cores and you thought this game features some crazy physics or advance AI to mess with, but dissapointed its almost non existance and they are actually used up by secuROM.AWWW...
Although its a massive improvement over bioshock secuROM fiasco but still not good enough, but its publisher is EA games, so dont get your hope too high.Once you start delving into the game main story arc, you will be compelled to finished it even the gameplay kinda sucks.Choose a soldier class, spec it well, and you can gun down every enemy rambo style for 95% of the game.There are tons of side quest, it adds some life to the game at first, but starts to become boring and repetitive after awhile.Jumping across starsystems have a cool animation AND loading screen but after 20hour plus into the game, it becomes fucking irritating.Oh yes talking about fucking irritating, theres the lift ride.It displays a >30 second , unskippable, boring lift ride , with its unimpressive graphics engine every time u take a lift.Its a great waste of time and one of the major design faults that make this game hell lot unenjoyable.
But luckily the main story arc made up to all its shortcoming.There are tons of conversation choices, and even some more to unlock if you put some points into charm or intimidation.The experience of rising to the rank of a spectre, getting your own stealth cruiser with your own crew, determine who lives or die in your squad, choice to exterminate a alien race, galatic government council lifes at your mercy, is one you will never experience in any other game.
In conclusion,if you love sci-fic space soap opera, love star wars,love KOTOR, love me, you will definetly love this game.

MY SHIP!! MYYYY!!


Infants friendly combat system


Intersting level designs and variation